I’ve kept a journal most of my life. Once upon a time when journals were diaries, the entries were rather sporadically written, short snippets of current events. Now my journals consist of freewrites, brainstorming, editorial notes, haikus, monologues, character bios, first drafts, random quotes, thoughts, ideas, lists and rambling aimless blathering.

The appearance of my journals evolved as well. Never one for pink flowers, bows or cheap little locks that any 5 year-old could jimmy, some of my early diaries were notepads and spiral notebooks. Occasionally money was spent for designer gear. There’s a green and white rabbit fabric diary sitting amongst my books and a fierce tiger against a royal blue background buried somewhere in the closet. I’ve enjoyed leather bound, embossed, gold edged pages as well, but writing in pricey extravagance tends to leave me feeling self-conscious and precious about content, which is not a fruitful state of being for a writer.

This is to explain my collection of composition books.

When the collection was small they roamed freely and were occasionally lost. When I think of these lost journals being found I’m filled with an odd mix of dread and amusement. What will the reader think? Oh my! And occasionally I consider destroying (recycling!) the surviving journals. If only to get rid of the evidence… But I haven’t reached such drastic measures just yet, so my comp books currently congregate on my bookshelf, an accumulating visual mass reminding me that I really do write even when I feel like I don’t.

Most of my collected comp books sell for $1 during back-to-school days, can be purchased at any drug or stationery store, and even the cheapest of them are made well enough for my purposes. (I do recommend avoiding Office Depot’s selection though, as I wasted about a half roll of tape trying to keep one of theirs together.)

One day I decided to title my growing collection. It was one of those decisions that didn’t require much thinking. I was sitting in class, bored out of my mind, flipping through the pages of my journal when I spotted an intriguing phrase and immediately scrawled it on the journals cover. It’s a practice I’ve engaged in ever since. All of my comp book titles are borne from its own pages and most remind me instantly as to what all was going on in my life at the time the journal was being kept.

Some of my favorite titles in no particular order: